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Updated the Dropbox app, folder hierarchy got ruined and got Selective Sync conflicts

I was prompted to update DropBox, so I did. Now, I have folder and files with Selective Sync Conflict everywhere, and my folder hierarchy is basically gone. The sub-folders with Selective Sync Conflict are now top-level folders.

This has happened on one desktops and one laptop. I have another desktop to update, and another laptop. I'm terrified to open DropBox on my cell phone.

Please note: I simply allowed DropBox to update. I didn't create any new folders, add any new files, etc. When the update was finished, this is what I'm seeing. There are many, many more that are not shown in the screenshots.

Screenshots from DropBox online and windows explorer. All those folders labeled "export" are sub-folders, at least one level, sometimes two levels deep.

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Comments

Mark

Selective Sync conflicts occur when you have told Dropbox to not sync a folder locally but then still use and run files in to that folder. Have you looked at this help article? It looks like you are using some application that is creating photos? My guess is that the folder its exporting to was actually turned off by Selective Sync at some point and so the application made a replacement one instead.

What I'd say about the other machines is you'll probably NOT have the issues across multiple devices, but, as Dropbox is a sync program when it adds those folders locally to the machine it will sync to the cloud and across all devices. Therefore you will have these error folders on all machines even though only 1 has the issue.

jeffb222

Hi Mark,

Nothing was creating folders or adding files. It was normal before the update, then as you see after.

The worst part is how it literally renamed files and folders, adding "Select Sync Conflict" to the file and folder names.

I just noticed I now have two Dropbox folders on my desktop - one named "DropBox (old)". It only contains a subset of the total number of files and folders. I'm not sure if all of those exist in the new DropBox folder.

Further, I see I have about 600 files in the DropBox root directory that are supposed to be in folders, but no longer are.

It looks like all the folders that now contain "Selective Sync Conflict" in their filenames are actually new duplicates of existing folders that are not renamed. It looks like those files are still in their original folders. I'll need to verify this, but I may be able to delete all of those.

I need a fresh pot of coffee.

Mark

jeffb222 wrote:
It looks like all the folders that now contain "Selective Sync Conflict" in their filenames are actually new duplicates of existing folders that are not renamed. It looks like those files are still in their original folders. I'll need to verify this, but I may be able to delete all of those.

Thats exactly how it works

So when Dropbox works out that a file it thinks shouldnt have been on the device yet is (i.e. there is a selective sync conflict) it creates duplicates of the other folders to make sure there is no data loss. Therefore you may find that the files are identical in both.